PANAJI
Finally, the Goa government has made its move to attempt a turnaround for the beleaguered Sanjivani sugar factory at Usgao and making ethanol is key to the plan.
A proposal has been formally floated asking parties interested in participating in the redevelopment of the 1971 sugar factory to apply for pre-qualification.
Interestingly, the 'Request for Qualification' proposal has been floated through the Agriculture Department which has taken over the factory which formerly came under the administrative control of the Department of Cooperation and the Registrar of Cooperative Societies.
The decision to redevelop the sugar factory which has for years been in the news for making losses and allegations by share-holders, mostly sugarcane farmers, of maladministration and scandalous functioning of the management, was taken by the government earlier in May.
The modalities were being worked out by the State government's Public-Private Partnership Cell which the proposal advertised said will be the agency for "project handholding".
The redevelopment of the Sanjivani Sahakari Shakar Karkhana will have to be done concurrently with the setting up of an ethanol production plant, the proposal states.
The redevelopment of the factory will eventually be implemented on a PPP mode and a 'Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) basis.
The Agriculture Department said it will therefore first up conduct a pre-qualification process by which it will shortlist suitable and eligible entities and invited 'Request For Qualification' bids through the State government's e-Procurement System.
As per the schedule, interested parties must send in their applications in the prescribed RFQ format by November 25.
A pre-application conference is also scheduled on October 31 where the interested entities will get the opportunity to seek clarifications and technical details of the bidding process.
Set up by the then Union territory government back in 1971, the Sanjivani sugar factory has been dogged with controversy in recent years over poor management. While most of its peers in the industry elsewhere have adopted ethanol production, it failed to make the change affecting its profitability amid universal fall in demand for sugar.
The State government engaged Deccan Sugar Technologists Association Pune to advise it on the plan to turn around the factory and the latter submitted a techno-economic feasibility report and a Project Report to redevelop the factory with an ethanol production plant.
The plan, according to sources in the government, is to set up a 45 kilo litre per day (KLPD) ethanol distillery.
The factory has been shut but the State government continued to procure cane from the farmers costing the State exchequer nearly Rs 16 crore annually.
